Plate CCXXIV. Adult and Young.
Bill moderately stout, greenish-yellow; feet black, with the hind toe
rudimentary, and furnished with a minute knob in place of the claw;
head, neck, rump, tail, and lower parts pure white; back and upper
surface of wings light greyish-blue; the first five quills black at
the end, the first on its outer web also; the fifth with a small white
tip; the tips of all the other quills more or less white. Young in its
second plumage with the bill and feet black; hind head and neck
bluish-grey; a semilunar blackish mark before the eye; tips of
auriculars dark grey; forehead, sides of head, throat, and lower
parts, white, as are the rump and tail, the latter with a broad
terminal band of black; mantle bluish-grey, with a broad band of black
crossing the lower part of the hind neck; larger wing-coverts of the
same colour toward the end; primary quills black, more or less
margined with white internally.
_Adult_, 18, 36-1/2.
Common as far south as New York. Abundant from Massachusetts eastward.
Breeds from the Bay of Fundy northward.
Larus tridactylus, Bonap. Syn. p. 359.
Larus tridactylus, Kittiwake, Swains. & Rich. F. Bor. Amer. v.
ii. p. 423.
Kittiwake, Nutt. Man. v. ii. p. 298.
Kittiwake Gull, Larus tridactylus, Aud. Orn. Biog. v. iii. p.
186.